THE HOLE
(C)1989 Alan M. Schwartz
One might define a hole as nothing surrounded on most of its
sides by something. As a member of this great nation, I am
dedicated to the production of stuff and its fabrication into
things. The creation of nothing seems like such a simple task.
Whole legions of lawyers, MBAs and politicians do it every day.
Why then was I stymied by the trivial placement of 5/16 by six
inches of nothing through a wall?
"We need a doorbell out back by the door, Al." Hey Hercules,
lift this guy up and then clean out these stables. It sounded so
simple. I had an electric drill, I had a drill bit, I had a
chuck key, I had a pencil, I had six inches of industrial
concrete wall that had been gaining strength for 20 years. Out
goes the tool steel drill bit. You might just as well chuck up a
hamster and try going though the wall, for all the good it would
do.
If I as a scientist in a major corporation were called upon to go
through a wall suitable for containing nuclear blasts, I would
ask for a thermal lance. A thermal lance is a long length of
iron pipe stuffed with steel wool and hooked to a trailer full of
liquid oxygen. You pump in the LOX, light the end of the pipe
with an automobile flare, and walk forward until you run out of
wall or run out of lance. I would ask for a water jet cutter. A
water jet cutter is a little jewel orifice set in a steel wand,
and hooked to a hydraulic gizmo that sends out a stream of good
old H-2-O squirting under about 100,000 psi near the speed of
sound. Since I am paying for this out of my own pocket, I walk
over to the hardware store and come back with a carbide masonry
bit.
I chuck up the bit and attack the wall. Fifteen minutes later I
am surrounded by a puddle of sweat, the bit is ruined, and a full
quarter inch dimple has been made in the wall. Don't you just
hate it when corruption, incompetence and cheap construction is
wasted on roads and skyscrapers and left out of industrial parks?
I go back to the hardware store for a couple more carbide bits
and two star drills. A star drill is a length of hardened steel
that comes to a point, sort of. When gently smashed with a baby
sledge hammer a few thousand times it gradually pulverizes its
way through a cement block. Wang, thunk, clunk goes the star
drill, powdering a millimeter of hardened concrete and aggregate.
Zing, gronk goes the carbide bit as I lean into the wall, my face
growing red with exertion as I contemplate the drill bit snapping
and my lean but proud countenance being pulped by impact with a
heavy duty electric drill gone insane.
I make pretty good time considering, an inch an hour. Two and a
half hours into this exercise the carbide bit hits rebar.
Scratch one drill bit.
Rebar is that ductile heavy steel bar with a rough surface put
into concrete forms that must bear tensile stresses, binding the
whole mess together and sullenly waiting for a chemist with a
drill to try to get through. Back I go to the hardware store for
a titanium nitride drill bit. "You lose!" I scream at the rebar
as the TiN monster devours the steel, spewing little grey
shavings onto the ground. "You lose!" chuckles the concrete on
the OTHER side of the rebar as it chews up the TiN drill bit.
This is why I bought two sets of carbide bits and star drills.
Scientists know this stuff. Murphy always has the wind at his
back.
As it was, as it was meant to be, the drill bit was just a little
bit too short to get the job done. With less than a quarter inch
of wall between me and my doorbell wire hole, I slip the star
drill into the dark passage and tap it with the baby sledge,
popping off a piece of the wall on the inside just smaller than a
dinner plate. I go back to the hardware store for some spackle.
I ran the wires through the wall, screwed them into the doorbell
push button, and noticed two little mounting holes along the edge
of the brass rim. I immediately suspected that these holes were
in some intimate one-to-one correspondence with the two brass
screws left in the blisterpack, and were no doubt only lacking
two holes in the wall in which to be fastened.
If you come down Red Hill Avenue in Costa Mesa, stop by our
little company. Come round back and we will let you in the rear
door. You cannot miss it. Our doorbell is the one glued to the
cement wall.